As I wrote all those term papers in college and graduate school, I made sure to insert at least one pun in every one of them. (A psychologist I’ve known for forty years attributes this punnishness to a busted synapse in my brain.) I titled one term paper, which compares the Oedipus plays of Sophocles and Hugo von Hofmannsthal,“Complex Oedipus.”
Read MoreHere is another column I wrote for a business magazine in Orange County back in the 90s. I was an AIDS emotional support volunteer (called a ìbuddy,î but actually a sort of professional friend) in the late 80s when the plague was still raging. I ìworkedî with the AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County, http://www.ocasf.org/ which is still in business. One of my buddies was a woman I called Lucila, though that wasnít her real name. The family was in major denial, so I changed names and facts. One thing I did not write was that Lucilaís husband gave her a vacuum cleaner for her last birthday on earth. Really! Hereís a slightly abridged version of my column from April 1, 1993.
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